After the unmitigated tyranny and fascism of their first few albums (fascism, by the way, is the honest ideological manifestation of heavy metal’s greasy soul, no matter what anyone else tells ya), Blue Oyster Cult began to mutate, as did we all. Gone was most of the tyranny, the severity of intellect, some of the admittedly “in-crowd” humor, and the predilection towards fantasy as chaos and chaos as a pretty nice way of life. Gone also was the biting, totalitarian noise they were so fond of playing and we were so fond of listening to.
Taking its place, like some rockin’ Andromeda Strain, was that little patch of musicality they’d explored on “The Last Days Of May”--y’know, that slick narrative metalease flecked with carbonated popisms, the kind of metalease that works so effectively in enhancing brooding tales of ghostly bikers swishing down an endless highway towards the end of the night, long oily hair resisting onrushing winds, dental necklaces and pliers clattering in night terror visions of Barstow and San Bernadino, and all of those other etceteras of crunge folklore. Metalease cakes with whispery, growling vocals, screams of whimpering rage dusted with arid angst, and last but not least the hammer and tongs rhythm ’n’ lead work of Buck (dat Boogie Man hisself) Dharma.
So what about The Revolution By Night? Sounds awright by me. As a matter of fact I feel safe in saying let’s ignite the figzigs of joy and dance in circles of danger, ’cause those boys from the sweet underside of the white underbelly, those stalkers of the rock forest, have once again given us leave to grab up the torches of velocity and render a few more cities on flame with rock’n’roll.
“Take Me Away” has the BOC sense of rowdy nobility that can send shivers up your spine. A nobility of noise that curls up in huge, cancerous energy balls at the base of your neck and screams, SCREAMS at you to say things you’re probably gonna be sorry for later. I like this song because it reminds me of, y’know, that noise, that bleating ya hear from the doom debutantes as they turn-turn-kick-turn into the bleeding face of inertia (gawd, I like it when I talk like that); it reminds me of that sense you got when you first learned the trick of picking up a tear gas canister and tossing it back, in a slow greyish white arc, at the blue meanies on the street in front of you; y’know it reminds me of VICTORY. C’mon take me away, I like rubber rooms, I like ice cube baths, I...
(He looks down at his wrist and gets fascinated as a vein slowly ceased up, a synapse fails momentarily and suddenly he can’t even remember his own name, but he does manage to remember the song that’s on incessantly poking its way through the headphones like a spring-loaded nail.) “Eyes On Fire” is a great follow up to “Burnin’ For You,” a love song like only BOC can give you a love song (heh heh).
(He looks into the mirror, into his ear, past the collected wax of a decade, and instead of a vein ceasing up, he hears a song penned by that noted harvester of eyes, R. Meltzer.) There’s another fine R. Meltzer song, too, called “Veins,” a song that gives us the first metal calypso/cha cha ever. A song that’d bring a smile to a stoned cockroach.
(Gregor Fernbacher woke up on his back. As the huge, leering shadows of California smirked down on him like some Valley Girl bitchin’ to be tied, his skin felt unusually tight ’n’ hard. He’d become a bug--no, he’d become (gulp) Dick Van Patten’s son! He suddenly had a craving for a thrill ride at a theme park. He suddenly wanted to have a cup of Coppertone No. 8. He suddenly wanted Brooke Shields’ phone number. He suddenly decided to say that). This first cut on side two is the Cult’s usual one-per-LP epic, this one called “Shadows Of California,” a song about highway life.
The rest of The Revolution By Night ain’t all that bad, though it also ain’t all that good. “Feel The Thunder” is that ghostly biker tale we spoke of earlier. “Let Go” is ignorable. So is “Dragon Lady” and “Light Years Of Love.”
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